Rather sadly, there comes a stage in life when snow stops being something you play around in, something you slide down on a tea-tray, something you roll into a ball and throw at grown-ups.

Instead, it becomes something you have to scrape off your car in the morning, something that delays your train, something those pesky kids down the street throw at you.

Perhaps it was this that gave the opening day of the Six Nations such a subdued tenor.

Having lived in Scotland for some years, I can tell you that over time, you develop something called the ‘Edinburgh grimace’, a pained scowl that gradually etches itself permanently onto your features, whatever the temperature.

As John Inverdale introduced the BBC’s broadcast from outside Murrayfield, you could see he had almost perfected it.

“We did plan all sorts of excitement for you outside,” he said. “But quite frankly, it’s freezing, which is why Jeremy Guscott, Andy Nicol and Brian Moore decided that the best place to be was indoors.” And they call rugby the ultimate man’s game.

Instead, it was a woman who showed the boys how to put on a brave face — and the pelt of a small animal — and make the best of things.

Gabby Logan was presenting coverage of France v Italy from the windy gantry at the very top of the Stade de France, widely recognised as the second coldest location in sport after Everton’s trophy cabinet.

Draped around her neck like a bounty was some sort of furry stole, or perhaps a furry collar to a coat. Was it real, synthetic? Rabbit, ermine, chinchilla? Off-cuts from Marc Lièvremont’s moustache? Who can say?

Later, Inverdale was back in his element, presenting one of those cod-history segments he so enjoys.

This one was about the 700-year enmity between the English and the Scottish, spanning Bannockburn, Culloden, the poll tax and devolution.

“Isn’t it funny how history sometimes repeats itself?” he asked us, cocking his head towards the camera in that way he probably thinks is dead charming.

Those of us who had sat through a virtually identical seminar about England and Wales last year might be tempted to point out that history was hardly the only thing repeating itself.

For all his airs, Inverdale is actually a fairly safe operator.

As long as he gets his winding monologue at the start, he seems perfectly happy to defer for the rest of the programme, prodding insight out of his guests with deceptively simple questions.

Some require no prodding. I should probably watch what I write about Brian Moore, given that he’ll be staring me down from about six pages away.

But he surely won’t mind my describing him as without a shadow of a doubt the most melancholy man in rugby, and possibly in broadcasting too.

To great effect, I hasten to add.

There is something quietly impressive about Moore’s instinctive dissonance with his surroundings, like a sort of inverse chameleon.

As Inverdale introduced the panel, Nicol and Guscott gave modest, watery smiles. You know, as you do. Moore, however, maintained his grim, stony-faced expression, as if bleakly aware this was all window-dressing.

Not that he was unable to crack a joke, of course. Stuart Lancaster’s Scottish heritage came up.

“I know him well,” Moore said. “I told him it would be better to be caught in a brothel!” A little awkward laughter followed.

Steadfastly eschewing the bland, Moore makes compelling viewing, whether you agree with him or not. I just worry for his sanity.

At times he almost seems exasperated not just at a poor pass or a piece of ill-disciplined scrummaging, but life itself.

If ever a man needed to strap a tea-tray to his buttocks and go sliding down a snowy hill, it’s him.